I am so excited to be part of the H.O.P.E designer team! I’ve been a creative person my whole life, and learned to sew at an early age under the patient tutelage of my mother. Growing up on a farm in Oregon gave me many opportunities to appreciate nature and work with my hands. Since we didn’t have neighbors close by, I often entertained myself as a child by cultivating my creative talents in various ways; drawing, writing, illustrating my stories, sewing, baking, belting out songs from the musical “Annie”, making mud pies…the usual.
I graduated with a BFA art studio degree from BYU in 1996, and eventually met and married my husband Steve. We have 3 beautiful, rambunctious children and currently live in Virginia. My fledgling art career gave way to Mommyhood, but my creative drive couldn’t be tamed, so I turned to sewing and interior/landscape design as a hobby outlet. One thing led to another and I now design fabric for Bernatex. I’m starting a pattern design business as well, which is where Create H.O.P.E Designs and my interest in helping orphans come in!
About a year ago, I came across the organization One Heart Bulgaria on YouTube. The pictures of those orphans and the conditions in which they lived struck me to the heart and touched me so deeply that I just sat there and cried, and cried, and cried. I couldn’t forget about those children, and I KNEW that I needed to help out somehow…and so I started the Sewing For Orphans campaign after talking with Deborah Gardner, the co-founder and director of One Heart Bulgaria. You can read all about the Sewing For Orphans project on my blog, 7LayerStudio.
I was contacted by Create H.O.P.E Designs and I knew this was an incredible opportunity to join hands with other designers to help provide much needed funds and awareness to orphans across the globe. What a fabulous idea, and such an exciting way to work together to ease the suffering of innocent, lonely and vulnerable children. I cannot imagine what it must be like to not have a family, to be suffering so much both physically and emotionally. It gives me great joy to be a small part in this effort to make the world a brighter place for the millions of precious orphaned/abandoned children among us.